Want to kill some time, but tired of playing good games? We feel you. We recently decided it would be fun to try and come up with a list of the seven worst free games on the internet. However, we quickly discovered that trying to make a list of the worst anything on the internet is sort of like trying to make a list of the worlds largest numbers. That is to say, there’s an infinite amount of terribleness on the internet.

So, since we decided that coming up with a list of the worst games was too enormous a task for just us to handle, Maximum PC EIC Will Smith used his Twitter account to ask for help. Naturally, the MaxPC faithful delivered in spades. We received a whole bunch of seriously awful submissions, tried them out for ourselves, and had an office-wide vote to pick the most truly, hilariously bad games of the bunch. Now, we get to share them with you.

Opera Software has released the final version of Opera Mini 4.2 for mobile phones, giving G1 handset users looking for change from Android's built-in WebKit browser a third party alternative to play with. Opera Mini, which is the first web browser alternative on Android, sports a number of enhancements, including what Opera claims is up to a 30 percent performance boost.

"With Opera Mini 4.2, we are showing the world that Opera never gets complacent. We will always be improving our product, adding speed, new functionality and features, and ensuring that it is accessible by all,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Our support of the Android platform helps fulfill our mission to be available on more platforms, for more devices and reach more users, anywhere in the world."

Opera Mini also boasts greater multilingual support with more than 90 language versions, personalization through skins, Opera Link support for notes, and support for mobile video on a wider range of phones.

After Relic-owner THQ purchased the Homeworld license from Vivendi, speculation about the next entry in the spacefaring RTS series naturally ran rampant. Now, however, even though the hypothetical game's presumed developers are finally using the words "home" and "world" without at least three sentences of dividing text, Relic's magic eight ball still says "Please ask again later."

"We're really happy the IP has made its way home, and yeah, we're definitely looking at it. We'll see what happens in the future," current Dawn of War II lead designer Jonny Ebbert told Eurogamer.

But beyond that, Relic's stalwart team of stoics only swatted away further questions.

"As it always has - behind closed doors. Blacked off. Homeworld 3, obviously, I'm not at liberty to tell you anything about. So, good try!" replied Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor designer Chris Degnan after a quick "How's Homeworld 3 looking?" -- likely even more enraged than he was after the fifth time Eurogamer tried that little trick.

General manager Tarrnie Williams also noted that Relic has "three or four" titles sizzling on the grill. Or at least, we think he did.

"It depends how you count; whether you use the old math or the new math," he said. He refused to explain the difference.

So, Homeworld 3 might fit in with Dawn of War II, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, and Company of Heroes Online (an Asian market-focused title), but Williams just insulted our math and we're pissed we can't really know.

Numerical nonsense aside, what's your take? Are you chomping at the bit for another Homeworld? What improvements would you like to see to the Homeworld formula?

Sounds like gaming is one quarter-donated-to-a-street-Santa away from snorkeling through your dumpster, right? Unsurprisingly, no.

As it turns out, initial reports concerning the EEDAR findings in question got their words in a jumble. See, the 96% statistic came from this little number:

"Only 4% of games that make it to market actually make a profit, he says. About 60% of a game's budget is spent reworking or redesigning a game. Armed with all this data, companies can make those tough calls early in the development process."

But!

According to a press release from EEDAR, that statistic should've read: "Only 4% of games that enter production will return a significant profit." However, 80% of games that enter production never make it to market, which kind of throws off the curve for the rest of the class.

Of the games that actually make it to market, then, a far less pukey 20% turn a profit. And while that doesn't exactly conjure up images of mansions and double-decker Ferraris, it's enough to keep the industry alive and (mostly) thriving.

A few weeks back Twitter and Facebook ended some big talks, where Facebook was looking to snatch up twitter for $500 million of its stock.

Sometime in mid-October Facebook had instigated talks with the San Francisco- based Twitter about possibly bringing them both together. And while the idea seemed great on paper (the world’s fastest growing microblogging site along with the obscenely popular social networking site), concerns of integration and cost were a large part of why the deal didn’t come to fruition.

Still, Twitter executives and board members felt that they should work on building their own revenues before they look at the possibility of a merger. Currently, they’ve got none.

What the future holds for Twitter, we don’t know. But in the meantime, we’ll continue to keep all of you updated on how we feel by using it.

Before the most recent version of Ubuntu (8.10, Intrepid Ibex) was even released, founder Mark Shuttleworth was already looking ahead by introducing The Jaunty Jackalope, or what will later be known as version 9.04. That was just over two months ago, and now eager Linux users can take a peek at what the upcoming release has in store by downloading the distro in Alpha 1 form.

In continuing to bring Linux to the mainstream, Shuttleworth listedsome specific goals it hopes to meet with Jaunty. Chief among them is improving the distro's boot time, both in standard cases and "when it is being tailored to a specific device." But speed isn't the only improvement he hopes to make in 9.04. The new distro will also look to have tighter integration between web services and desktop applications.

Ubuntu users hoping to get a first look at Jaunty Jackalope can download the Alpha 1 release now, although developer Colin Watson warns that the pre-release isn't intended for anyone needing a stable system.

"This is the very first roughly working set of images off the production line, and they haven't all been tested, so you should expect some bugs," Watson wrote in the release announcement. "Prominent among these are that some of the images are oversized and can only be tested using a DVD or a virtual machine, and that the desktop CD isn't ready yet!"

The next major Alpha release is scheduled for December 18th, followed by additional pre-releases until the final version debuts on April 23.

There’s no denying that Flash has changed the world of entertainment in some pretty profound ways. Sure, some might argue that we could have done without the flash-enabled advent of floating ads, gaudy movie websites and cheaply-animated stoner cartoons, but we think that the good outweighs the bad. After all, without Flash, we’d be missing out on a whole slew of rad flash games, clever web interfaces and cheaply-animated stoner cartoons. And let’s not forget YouTube and its ilk, which have truly revolutionized the way we waste time.

However, there’s a problem with streaming video: you don’t get to keep it on your computer when you’re done. So if you want to watch something again, or to show it to your friends, you have to go back and find it on the website again. But it’s pretty easy to rip streaming video to your hard drive, and in this article we’ll show you how, as well as how to convert that video to other formats so that you can play it on your device of choice.

It’s hard to believe in the iTunes era of blink-and-you-miss-them CD rips, but in the mid-90s, ripping a CD was a time-consuming process, fraught with peril. Ripping a single disc to 128kbps MP3 could take 8 hours on a 200MHz Pentium! Fast forward a decade, with faster hardware and better software and CD ripping is so mainstream your mom does it.

Ripping DVDs and transcoding the video stored within into more efficient formats involves an order of magnitude more scary math than ripping audio CDs. A machine that will rip the latest Miley Cyrus CD in moments could take hours to extract and convert your copy of AVP to an iPod-friendly format. However, with the right software, a quad-core equipped PC, and a little know-how, you can cut your disc rip time from hours to 20 or 30 minutes. There are still plenty of tricks and traps for first-time rippers, but we’ll show you the basics, then walk you through the secrets of ripping power users everywhere.

However, the first thing you need to decide is simple: what player are you ripping your discs for? Are you ripping for a portable player, like the PSP or iPhone? Would you rather stream to device in your living room, like the Xbox 360, PS3, or Popcorn Hour? Are you simply interested in making an archival-quality DVD rips, in case you lose your collection? More likely, you’re probably looking for a combination of all three of these things. We’ll show you how to rip your DVD to a file suitable for streaming that consumes a fraction of the disk space of a DVD but maintains full video and audio quality. Then you can take that file, and convert it for whatever other devices you might have, like a PSP or an iPod. For the purposes of this story, we're going to focus on DVD rips. Getting ahold of unencrypted high-defintion video legally is still pretty tricky. We'll update with Blu-ray ripping info as ripping Blu-ray gets easier.

Internet Explorer may be slowly losing ground to Firefox, but it’s still by far the number one browser in the world with over 71% of the market. Why you ask? Simple, it comes bundled with every new PC and is the most widely known and supported web platform in the world.Google knows if it is to gain market share they are more likely to steal from IE users who simply use whatever browser ships with their new PC. To this end The Times Online has revealed details on what they call “Google’s plan to make Chrome the browser of choice for the everyday user”.

According to Google’s Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai Chrome will come out of beta sometime in January at which point they would pursue distribution deals with various OEM’s. This would see Chrome ship as the default browser on some new machines, and in theory drive up its popularity. Paichai also added that the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome will be available by the first half of next year as well. Currently only Windows users have been able to participate in the open beta. Past anti-trust rulings against Microsoft would make blocking Google’s plans rather difficult, and according to Paichai “We will throw our weight behind it. We’ve been conservative because it’s still in beta, but once we get it out of beta we will work hard at getting the word out, promoting to users, and marketing will be a part of that.”

So will pre-installing Chrome help Google gain market share? Click the jump and let us know what you think.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be forced to take the stand to defend his involvement in the “Vista Capable” marketing initiative which sparked a class action lawsuit back in February. The court has been selectively taking testimony from key Microsoft executives based on the contents of the 158 page bundle of internal emails that Judge Martha Peachman ordered unsealed. Specifically the court seems interested to learn of Ballmer’s involvement in giving Intel a pass on its underpowered integrated graphics hardware which turned out to be barely capable of booting Vista Basic. In one specific chain senior vice president Will Poole emailed Ballmer following a conversation with Intel CEO Paul Otellini stating:

“Steve, following up on the call you took from Paul today, we have changed our program so that Intel's current integrated parts qualify for 'Vista Capable' branding ... This change completely resolves their problem. “

In response Ballmer wrote:

“I thought they had other issues Certainly paul described other (non graphics) issues is this really resolved check back with her thanks”.

In the eyes of Judge Peachman this is sufficient acknowledgement of the issues to justify the need for a deposition. Ballmer has 30 days to schedule his three hour appearance, but he has yet to set a date. A Microsoft spokesman has responded to the press by stating, "We will of course comply with the court's order. Mr. Ballmer's knowledge about the Windows Vista Capable program comes from the executives he empowered to run the program and make decisions, and two of those executives already testified in this case." Many other spectacularly controversial quotes have come from the internal emails, including a VP of product management Microsoft employee who claims to have been “burnt” by the program. But Officially Microsoft defends the initiative and claims many of the emails and memos released have been taken out of context.